Computer systems are formed from a collection of hardware, firmware and software. Typically, a computer system includes one or more processors, memory, peripheral and input/output (IO) devices and so forth. Various user applications execute on the computer system under control and using system services of an operating system (OS). Example operating systems include Linux™ and Windows™ operating systems.
Before a user can begin using a computer system, a boot process is performed upon the power up of the system such that the OS kernel, which is the main functionality of the operating system, can be initiated. In typical systems before an operating system boot, normally a basic input/output system (BIOS) firmware is executed to perform various self-test and other functions, which then passes off control to an OS boot loader, which is a part of the operating system that is used to load various kernel items needed to enable various system functionality, including providing graphics capability to thus initiate a display to enable the user to log in.
System startup speed is one of the factors users consider when describing how fast a computer system is. With the ever increasing bloat of OS software, the boot time for the OS is impacted, causing delays that are undesirable to a user.